Erik Winfree (born September 26, 1969) is an American applied computer scientist, bioengineer, and professor at

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

. He is a leading researcher into DNA computing and DNA nanotechnology. In 1998, Winfree in collaboration with

Nadrian Seeman Nadrian C. "Ned" Seeman (December 16, 1945 – November 16, 2021) was an American nanotechnologist and crystallographer known for inventing the field of DNA nanotechnology. Biography Seeman studied biochemistry at the University of Chicago an ...

published the creation of two-dimensional lattices of DNA tiles using the "double crossover" motif. These tile-based structures provided the capability to implement DNA computing, which was demonstrated by Winfree and

Paul Rothemund Paul Wilhelm Karl Rothemund is a research professor at the Computation and Neural Systems department at Caltech. He has become known in the fields of DNA nanotechnology and synthetic biology for his pioneering work with DNA origami. He shared b ...

in 2004, and for which they shared the 2006 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology. In 1999, he was named to the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

TR100 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...

as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. He graduated from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

with a BS, and from the

Computation and Neural Systems The Computation and Neural Systems (CNS) program was established at the California Institute of Technology in 1986 with the goal of training Ph.D. students interested in exploring the relationship between the structure of neuron-like circuits/networ ...

program at the

with a PhD, where he studied with

John Hopfield John Joseph Hopfield (born July 15, 1933) is an American scientist most widely known for his invention of an associative neural network in 1982. It is now more commonly known as the Hopfield network. Biography Hopfield was born in 1933 to Po ...

and Al Barr. He was a Lewis Thomas Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Biology at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

.Erik Winfree bio at Harvard
/ref> He was a 2000

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

. His father

Arthur Winfree Arthur Taylor Winfree (May 15, 1942 – November 5, 2002) was a theoretical biologist at the University of Arizona. He was born in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. Winfree was noted for his work on the mathematical modeling of biological ...

, a theoretical biologist, was also a

Works

''DNA Based Computers V: Dimacs Workshop DNA Based Computers V June 14–15, 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology''
Editors Erik Winfree, David K. Gifford, AMS Bookstore, 2000,
''Evolution as computation: DIMACS workshop, Princeton, January 1999''
Editors Laura Faye Landweber, Erik Winfree, Springer, 2002,
"DNA Computing by Self-Assembly"
''Ninth Annual Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering'', National Academies Press, 2004,
''Algorithmic Bioprocesses''
Editors

Anne Condon Anne Elizabeth Condon, is an Irish-Canadian computer scientist, professor, and former head of the Computer Science Department of the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on computational complexity theory, DNA computing, and bi ...

, David Harel, Joost N. Kok, Arto Salomaa, Erik Winfree, Springer, 2009,

References

External links

*
"Erik Winfree"
''Scientific Commons''
AAAS Member Spotlight: Erik Winfree studies the computational components of DNA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Winfree, Erik Living people California Institute of Technology faculty California Institute of Technology alumni University of Chicago alumni Princeton University fellows MacArthur Fellows American computer scientists American bioengineers DNA nanotechnology people 1969 births